Homemade Cat Food. Seriously.

I've promised it for a while, and finally, here it is.

My recipe for homemade cat food.

My cousin, Jane, is a veterinary surgeon.  She's super awesome when it comes to natural solutions to animal problems, and even performs acupuncture on animals.  I knew that when I got my cats, I would be talking to her when it came to their food.

Honestly, I wasn't surprised when she told me that most store bought cat food is pure crap.  Its just a lot of crude protein and carbs and it makes cat poop and pee really stinky.  It can also be responsible for the mythical "smelly cat" syndrome.

So, with help from Jane and the amazing people at Whiskers Holistic Pet Products, I have devised this recipe.

Let's begin.  This recipe will make enough food for three cats for about 2 weeks.

Ingredients:

3.5 lbs. of ground turkey
6 eggs
Two medium sized sweet potatoes
1 bunch of parsley

Let's begin with the smaller bits and pieces.

The eggs and sweet potatoes need to be boiled.  To save space on the stove, I boil them both together in the same pot.

I put the eggs in water first:

Then peel and chop the sweet potatoes:

Then put them all together in boiling water:

I find the time of cooking the sweet potatoes to get them soft is a good measure of time for cooking the eggs.
While that is going on, cook the meat.

Once everything is cooked, its time to combine.  Basically you just use a food processor and make everything into a slurry, but I'll show you how I do everything.

I like to combine the eggs, parsley and sweet potatoes first.

As for the parsley, you want to use a lot of it.  More than you think.  I'm posting a picture below of my hand with the parsley to give it some scale, but its a whole bunch from the grocery store.

You just cut the stems off:

And plop that in the processor:

 

Its easier to chop all this up before you put anything else in there, and you add some good-for-the-feline stuff.

 

You want to use 1/2 a cup of the cat oil supplement.  It has all kinds of fish oils and vitamins and stuff.  If you have cats that  like to chew plastic bags, its because they aren't getting enough of this stuff.

You can also use olive oil if you want, but its not as good as this stuff.

I use just enough of this to make a parsley/cat oil pesto-esque mixture.

Then, add the cooked sweet potatoes.

Then, the eggs.  Now, you only need to use the egg yolks, the yellow part of the egg.

 

Now, combine it all, and you should get a mixture that looks like this:

 

Now, for the meat.

When cooking this, do everything you can to preserve all the turkey juices.  You can use all of the juices to help reconstitute it all and grind it up better.  If you need to add some water to make it more juice-y, go for it.

 Then, you mix it all up together.  It'll look something like this:

Now, on to actually serving the stuff.  You don't need much.  Our cats get fed twice a day.  For breakfast, they get one tablespoon each, and two tablespoons for dinner.  I'll show you how we serve the single tablespoon serving.

 

They get extra vitamins with their food.  I use this:

Specially suggested by the fine folks at Whiskers Holistic Pet Products, this stuff has everything you need for healthy and happy cats.  They get one teaspoon per meal.

Reconstitute the cat food with a little water and mix it till it looks like this:

Then put it on the floor, till it looks like this:

The big black guy is our boy Wee Thomas, the little beige beauty is our lady Jezebel.  The pretty little tabby in the middle, is a new addition to our house, Lola.  Our new roommate, Sam, brought Lola with her, and wanted to try out our food with her.  Amazing things have happened.  In just a couple weeks she has lost weight, she's much more active than she ever was and, according to Sam, she's lost her stink.

Apparently, she used to be a MAJOR stinky cat, with major stinky bowel movements.  Now, she doesn't have either one of those problems.

For the vitamins and oil used, if you are in NYC, Whiskers the is best place to go.  If you head toward to back right of the store there is a huge selection of vitamins and whatnot, and the guys who work there are incredibly knowledgeable.  They have two locations, one in Queens and one on East 9th street.  Check out their website.

Warning, they have a ton of awesome stuff - you are going to want to buy a lot of things there.

So, there you have it.  Let me know how your kitties enjoy!

I Can't Think Of A Snappy Title, So This One's About Horror Movies.

Last night I was home alone with my sewing and what did I decide to do on a dark evening all by myself with the cats rummaging around in the background?

Of course I decided to watch a couple of scary movies.

Very specific things scare me.  As I have established in earlier posts, I am not a fan of alien abduction movies because when they are done properly, when the protagonist is sufficiently trapped, devoid of hope and forced into a shadowy version of their former selves, they really get under my skin.

Demon/demon possession movies also scare me.

I am a big fan of horror films that rely on the imagination of the viewer to bring the evil into focus.  Your CGI ghost/alien/monster and your special effects blood/gore will never match an imagination running rampant of what something could be.

I think the best example of this in recent years have been the Paranormal Activity movies.  Not only do the filmmakers trust the audience's imagination to fill in the gaps, they are masters at building tension, layering anxiety and the all important scare tactic, timing.

There is one excellent moment in Paranormal Activity 2 (SPOILER) when the mother (played by Sprague Grayden) is sitting alone in the kitchen.  She is the only one home, and very much alone even though its the middle of the day.  She feels more than hears a presence behind her, and she turns, looking for what has triggered that instinctual feeling we all have when someone or something is standing close to you.  Seeing nothing, she relaxes slightly, and turns back.  Just at the moment, all the cupboards burst open explosively and scare the poop out of Grayden and anyone watching.

This was an expertly executed moment.  First off, she's home alone.  The audience knows SOMETHING has to happen, so our eyes are already darting here and there on the screen to see what's going to move, where a shadow might appear, etc.  Already, the tension is building.  We feel that presence along with Grayden, and when she turns, our hackles are up right along with her's, we are so ready for something to happen and so ready to be scared.  But nothing happens.  As she relaxes slightly, so do we.  Just as we are all feeling slightly relieved that nothing happened, hell breaks loose.

The timing on the actual scare is just perfect.  Not to mention Grayden's reaction - I often wonder, watching that scene if the directors even told her what was going to happen.  It seems plausible that they could have said to her, "Ok, go sit in the kitchen - something's going to happen, but don't worry, just act naturally."  Which is mean, but makes for a great reaction from both her and the audience who needs to put on new underwear.

More traditional, religious possession movies are pretty terrifying as well.  What I find scary about this situation doesn't have as much to do with the demon - although that does give me the jibblies.  What is more frightening about that is if you are possessed by a demon, you have to rely  upon the faith of another person to save you.  The person performing an exorcism must have such strong, intense faith that the demon inside of you cannot stand to be in that person's presence.  That is not an easy thing to find, even among priests and reverend's.  An exorcist must also be very smart, very clever because he/she must force and trick the demon into revealing his true name in order to gain power over him.

There was a movie made a couple years ago called 'The Last Exorcism'.  It begins in a relatively predictable way, centered on a preacher in the south who has been an exorcist for years and is convinced that demon possession lies in the mind of the victim and by preforming exorcisms he is providing a service.  If you think you've been exorcised, then you have been.  He takes a documentary film crew with him on his "last exorcism" to prove to them and the world the fraudulent nature of this work.

Of course, things are not always what they seem.

The moments where the girl in this movie (Ashley Bell) is possessed are actually very harrowing, and very uncomfortable to watch.  Bell is quite adept at being supremely creepy.

Unfortunately, the film makers ruin the movie.

At the end, (SPOILER) the have the documentary crew and reverend come upon a ritual out in the woods, where the girl is on an alter surrounded by Satan worshipers with a great blazing fire behind her.  She's being held down and it looks like an invisible force is raping her.  Then, a large creepy looking lady pulls something out of her, and when the evil priest-y guy holds it up and you can see that its a demon-baby.

Completely ruins the movie.  I was all on board until they pulled the demon baby out of her.  I was all into this sweet girl being possessed by the devil himself, and then it turned out to just be some other random raping/abortion demon and a cult thing thrown in for good measure?  When will people learn to leave well enough alone?

If this had been a story about a man finding his true faith through unimaginable evil, I would have been totally on board.  The girl could have even died in it.  That would have worked.  Nevertheless, by trying to pull the ol' switcheroo on us and putting a twist in the end, it completely cheapened the story.

So for all you filmmakers out there - trust your audience.  We aren't all idiots.  And making a story simple doesn't make it bad.  Even in 'The Sixth Sense' the twist at the end wasn't complicated.  It aided and added to the story, it didn't detract from it.

So . . . yeah.  Scare me properly, people.

People Bring Me Closer To Disappearing Into The Bush of Australia

The more and more I see, the more and more I despair for the future of this planet.

"Oh, Ashley, why do you say that?" You may query.  "Are you speaking of the state of the American government as it currently stands?  Do you refer to the economic crisis that worsens by the day, or our enemies that grow by the hour?  Are you planning on joining the protesters on Wall Street?"

My friends, the answer to these questions is an honest, emphatic and resounding NO.

...

I don't have to look the far away from my own experience to know that we're all fucked.

The future of this country, and the world as we know it lies in, as it may imply, the future.  And the custodianship of the future belongs to the young, the kids who are in school now, who are developing their own dreams.

The little fuckers who write insulting things on the internet.

Ok, I admit, I have a difficult time dealing with little shits who write nasty comments on videos or posts.  They do it because it's a safe environment, because they don't have to actually speak to someone, they get to be anonymous and they aren't in danger of being punched in the face.

As a performer, I have one or two things on YouTube.  And I know that I get way too emotionally involved in people being assholes, so I have the comments set up so if you want to comment, it must first be approved by yours truly.

One of my videos recently got a comment.  I am always interested in constructive criticism.  I really do welcome it.  Do you have something to tell me that will help me improve my craft and become better at what I do?  You took time out of your day to aid in my crusade to be part of the top tier of performers?  That is incredibly selfless.  I could cry.  Honestly, I have tears in my eyes as I type this.  How on this plain or any plain of existence can I possible thank you for that?

Or are you just being a little shit.

I am addressing this to youtube user manaranam.

This person (gender unknown) watched a snippet of a live edit of myself and another very fine actor performing Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.  This play is full of very complicated themes, dramatic and funny.  It is as visceral as it gets, dealing with two people far down the road to despair who find each other, and through their own tragedies, save each other.

To which manaranam commented - "this is stooped"

I didn't clean that up at all.  

Lower case lettering.

No punctuation.

And really, not making any sense at all.

I am assuming that what manaranam meant to say was - "This is stupid."  I don't see how he could have actually meant "stooped".  The dictionary defines the word "stooped" as "to bend the head and shoulders, or the body generally, forward and downward from an erect position; to carry the head and shoulders habitually bowed forward."  

Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe manaranam is concerned about us.  Maybe he/she saw something in the film that made them think that we need to see a doctor, maybe somethings' wrong with our back, maybe this was his/her way to reaching out to us to let us know we need to get something checked out.

Hey, perhaps that's the reason there was no punctuation!  User manaranam was in such a rush to get us this information, they couldn't even bother with proper grammar!  They were all, "Fuck it, these people need to know about the stooping!"

Unfortunately, I have a strong feeling this is not the case.  

Come back when you learn how to spell the word "stupid", dipshit.

This, dear reader, is why I despair for the future.

Don't Dedicate Your Life To Something Stupid

So, we were talking about aliens once.

Now, I am not ashamed to say that when it comes to aliens, they freak me the fuck out.  I have a hard time believing that adorable, life-loving, humor-inducing aliens a la "E.T." and "Close Encounters" will get to us before the terrifying, unintelligible, human-hating/consuming aliens of, well, "Alien", "Signs" or "Little Shop of Horrors". 

Don't feed the plants!

I do think there must be something out there in the vast expanse of the galaxy.  Honestly, I would feel really bad if it was just us.  Come on, out of infinite possibilities in the infinite infinity of space, it's just us?

Seems wasteful.

Anyway, so I think there must be other civilizations out there somewhere, and I can even consider the claims that these otherworldly beings have already visited our lonely blue planet.

But I gotta tell ya, the people who are often pro-UFO are making that really really difficult for me.

For example, remember the post about Ancient Aliens?  Don't answer that, of course you do, you read everything I write and every day you don't see a new post is a day without sunshine.

Well, on this program not only do they make the most outrageous claims, but they have the most outrageous people making them.

One of the primary contributors to this show is Giorgio Tsoukalos.

He looks like this.

Ok, that's not a fair picture.  Here's a better one.

Honest.  That's a better picture.

This guys comes up with some of the dumbest theories of all time.  I honestly don't understand how he can't hear himself talk and not say, "Man, I am completely full of shit."

For example, "Mary (of Bible fame) was visited by an alien, which she mistook for an angel, impregnated her and Jesus was actually half alien."

Even my cats roll their eyes when they hear this shit.

See, that's something else these guys need to work on.  When regular, every day, respected scientist talk about science-y stuff, its basically boring.  Even stuff they are wildly passionate about comes out like a bad math teacher trying to teach you fractions.

When they get all tense and excited about the whole alien thing, they just sound super crazy.  Honestly, its hard to say things like, "King Tut was probably an alien hybrid," without sounding like you forgot to take your meds, but if you say it seriously and calmly and not jumping up and down and explaining it like you were talking to a five year old, you might get a little further.

Not much, but a little.

Oh, and then they say things like, "Everybody wants to meet an alien."

Not true, "scientist"!

I don't.  Not until they've been thoroughly vetted and investigated to make sure they aren't gonna suck my lung out through my nostrils.  More to the point, I don't know what I would say to an alien.  I'd probably say something really inappropriate, like, "So, why are all you guys so slime-y?", "What's the deal with anal probing?", "Did you really have crazy alien sex with ancient Greek maidens and tell them you were Zeus?" - that's another claim by these "scientists".

They just said the words "death ray" in a serious context.  YOU CAN'T CALL IT A DEATH RAY. 

I can't deal with this shit.

I Have No Problem With People Named Billy Joe Or Tater Tots

So, I recently cut off about thirteen inches of my hair.

But I am not here to talk about that - about what incredibly bravery it took to take that step, about the mental anguish I went through afterwards, about the resources needed to completely revamp my acting life - no, I am not going to talk about any of that.

What I would like to discuss is something much more insidious than any ghost story.  More unnerving than both of Bush's presidencies.  More troubling than Ethan Hawke's acting career.

I am speaking, of course, of Locks of Love.

Ok, maybe its not that bad.

Locks of Love is a really lovely organization that collects hair of a certain length from people willing to donate in order to make wigs for kids under 21 who have lost their hair due to medical problems or medications. 

Seems kind enough, right?

Well, I was all set to become one of these righteous, selfless people who donates their hair to those in need.  I get my hair cut by the wonderful Stephen Keough - do yourself a favor and get your hair cut by him if you live in the New York City area - and I came home with my bag full of hair, all ready to look up where I could take it and drop it off.

You can imagine my surprise when I got to the website.

All hair donations must be mailed to Locks of Love at:

234 Southern Blvd.
West Palm Beach, FL 33405-2701

I was completely floored.

For some reason, this completely weird-ed me out.  I have to send my hair through the mail?  Does that seem discomforting to anyone else?

My hair was apart of me, it was a big part of what defined me since I was 12 years old.  And you just want me to throw that in an envelope and send it to Florida? 

The more and more I think about this, the more and more I feel really uncomfortable.  

You mean I don't get to see who actually receives my hair?  What if some weirdo just set up this website and has this hair sent to his house.  Just some creepy guy with piles of hair everywhere. 


What if the person who opens the package doesn't do so with enough reverence?  There should be candles lit (kept far enough away from the hair of course), other-worldly music must be playing, it should be laid on a pillow on a silver platter and gently carried to where it will be most daintily constructed into the most beautiful wig for the next spiritual leader of the new millennium.

I know what you're thinking, and yes, I know I'm not asking for much and these requests aren't out of line at all.

Its good to know you're on my side.

But instead it might be some guy named Billy Joe who just went to the bathroom (and didn't wash his  hands, by the way), and is eating tater tots with the one hand, while he rips the packaging open and just tosses my beautiful golden-brown hair into a trash bag of other hair waiting to be carted off.

Of course I am going to send my hair in.  Locks of Love is a wonderful organization that helps really deserving kids out there, and I am really honored that I get to be apart of helping someone feel better. 

But still, kinda ranks up there with, like, sending a tooth through the mail.

Gross. 

Emoting Ahead. Be Warned.

Ok, Internet, its time to get personal.

This coming Monday, October 3, the life of a man very close to me will change forever.  My roommate, best friend and adopted brother, Bryan Fenkart will begin the first step of a journey that will out him even further on his path.  This isn't a figurative journey, but an actual one.

For the past two years, Bryan has been understudying the lead role of Huey in the Broadway production of Memphis.  He was the first choice of everyone and anyone who matters to star in Memphis' touring company.  This Monday he will get on a plane, and head off into the wild, blue yonder.

I met Bryan about eight years ago.  It was my very first year in New York, and I got cast in a Nosedive production called Mayonnaise Sandwiches.  It was a tiny, no-money production in a the basement "theater" of an old church.  As my first show in NYC, I loved every second of it.  It honestly changed my life forever, mostly because of the lanky young actor who was playing opposite me.

He was a man of extreme talent and potential.  He played guitar and piano, he was smart, funny and handsome, he was confident and definitely the most interesting person I had ever met.

Obviously, the first thing I did was fall head over heels in love with him.  I was a starry-eyed young Virginian transplant to New York City and was in no means immune to his charms.

I thank my lucky stars that there was never any relationship between us.

Instead, over the next years a very strong, steady, rewarding friendship grew between us.  We became roommates almost 4 years ago, and since then he has been a constant source of encouragement and solace in my life.  He was with me when my grandfather died and my first serious, grow-up boyfriend left me.  He was with me when I got cast in Law and Order and when I met the man I'm going to marry.  Bryan has been with me at my very best and my very worst.

Throughout the years, I have watched Bryan's career.  He has gone from teeny-tiny productions to Broadway, from playing Jersey coffee houses to playing with Richie Cannata to sold out houses.  Through the years he has proved again and again his talent is immense and fair reaching.

Throughout his ride with Memphis thus far, I have really seen him step up his game.  He has worked harder and more than ever.  I have never been as proud of him as I am now.  I am so lucky to count him as part of my family.  He is a continual source of inspiration.

I'm not completely sure why I am writing this.  I know when he leaves both James and I are going to miss him terribly.  Life will definitely be a little more subdued.  I know I'll be sad once in a while, but I am so excited for all he's got ahead of him.  I guess I'm saying that I hope everyone has a friend like I have.  He's held me when I've cried and bolstered my courage when it's waned.  He's laughed with me in the most ridiculous situations and trusted me with his own hurts.  I really couldn't have been luckier when it comes to my New York family.

The tour dates are as follows:

October 14 at the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis, where it will play through October 23.

Other venues include Houston, TX (October 25-30)
Tulsa, OK (November 1-6)
Oklahoma City, OK (November 8-13)
Nashville, TN (November 15-20)
Chicago, IL (November 22 - December 4)
Toronto, ON (December 6-25)
Pittsburgh, PA (December 27-January 1, 2012)
Charlotte, NC (January 3-8)
Hartford, CT (January 10-15)
Philadelphia, PA (January 17-22)
Durham, NC (January 24-29)
Atlanta, GA (January 31-February 5)
Clearwater, FL (February 7-12)
Naples, FL (February 14-19)
Greenville, SC (February 21-26)
Cleveland, OH (February 28-March 11)
St. Paul, MN (March 13-25)
East Lansing, MI (March 27-April 1)
Baltimore, MD (April 3-8)
Hershey, PA (April 10-15)
Schenectady, NY (April 17-22)
Des Moines, IA (April 24-29)
St. Louis, MO (May 1-13)
Dallas, TX (May 15-27)
Columbus, OH (May 29-June 3)
Buffalo, NY (June 5-10)
Washington, DC (June 12-July 1)
Kansas City, MO (July 10-15)
Las Vegas, NV (July 17-22)
San Diego, CA (July 24-29)
Los Angeles, CA (July 31-August 12)

If he is coming to a city near you, do yourself a favor and see the show.  He's gonna be a huge star one day, and you'll want to say "you saw him when".

I love you very much, Bryan.  Go be awesome, you son of a bitch.

I Don't Know If You've Ever Been On A Galloping Horse, But You Don't Notice Much

I grew up in Virginia.  Not deep south Virginia, Northern Virginia.  Also known by those who know as NoVa.  Its like Southern Lite.  Not everyone had a Confederate flag on their front lawn, but you also weren't surprised to see one when it was there.  My sixth grade teacher played Gone With The Wind for us to show us what "the Northern aggressors did to us" but didn't deny that we weren't exactly correct about that whole slavery thing.

There is something about southern women - and I mean real southern women - that cannot be duplicated.  And you can't become a real southern woman unless you have been born in the south, raised in the south and gotten old in the south.  When you are over 50, you could qualify to be a real southern woman.

There is a talent that all fine southern woman have.  It takes a while to perfect this talent, and only ladies from south of the Mason Dixon line (look it up) are born with an innate sense of this skill.

I am, of course, speaking of the Backhanded Southern Compliment.

You may have come in contact with this before.  If it was done properly, you would have thought that someone just said something really lovely to you, but for some reason, you feel terrible and you don't know quite why.

We'll start slow.

You're wearing a new shirt.  It's a bit different from what you usually wear, and it took some confidence and self-esteem building to work up the courage to wear it out of the house, but you have and at the moment you are feeling pretty good about it.  You come into work, and your chipper and sweet co-worker looks you up and down, smiles engagingly and says:

"Oh, darling, I never would have thought that color would have worked on you!"

You immediately smile back, and thank her, but as you sit down you realize that you have resolved to never wear that shirt again.

Now why is that?

You've been struck by the Backhanded Southern Compliment (BSC).

See, there are a couple of things that happened back there.  First off, the disarming smile, and the perky, happy way the sentence was said.  That was all to throw you off of what was actually being said.  Second, the sentence itself.  The BSC relies on the fact that most people don't really listen to an entire sentence.  The end of the sentence is where all the important stuff is, right?  So what you filter the sentence in you mind to be "That color works on you!"  All the while, the part of the sentence that you didn't pay any mind too has ninja'd it's way into your mind and is applying nasty pressure points to your subconscious.

I remember quite vividly my first encounter with the BSC.  I was in high school and had been nominated for an acting award and I was going to be honored at the Kennedy Center in DC and everything.   I never really did much with my hair or makeup or anything, but for this I had gotten all dolled up, I was wearing this lovely dress, had heels on and was feeling pretty great about how I looked.  I walked down the stairs into the living room where my parents were waiting.

My mother took one look at me, threw her hands up in the air and exclaimed, "Oh, Ashley!  You'd be so pretty if you were just a little bit taller."

Any self-esteem that my fragile, high school self had built up to that point was shattered to the ground.

I consoled myself for years that was she actually meant to say was that I looked pretty wearing heels.  Yeah, that makes sense.  I never really wore them, so seeing me in them was nice and I looked pretty.

I recently spoke to my mom about it and she informed me that she probably meant exactly what she said.

Other BSCs can be similar to these:

"Oh, you girls today are so modern! I NEVER would have considered calling a man first. Cause you know, that's what (lowers voice) girls from the other side of the tracks did."

"Your bravery astounds me. That haircut takes guts." 

"Those earrings are lovely dear. They make your hair look more done." 

"You don't want to move to New York sweetie. Everything north of the Mason Dixon Line is terrible for jobs. I know plenty of girls your age who moved to Atlanta and found great jobs where they met their husbands!" 

Another phrase to watch out for comes at the end of the BSC in the form of "...bless his/her heart."  It means that whatever you said in the beginning of the sentence was not mean, no matter what it sounds like.

"She's been known to have one too many drinks, bless her heart."

"We never thought he'd amount to much, bless his heart."

I made an amazing discovery recently into just how similar Southerners and the Brits can be.  My grandmother is from Liverpool, England.  She fought the Jerries in World War II, just recently celebrated her 90th birthday, lives on her own and is in all ways the most amazing lady on the planet.

I was asking her recently how I looked.  She looked me up and down, straightened all of her 5 foot frame, stared me straight in the eye and said:

"Oh, darling, a man on a galloping horse wouldn't notice!"

Love you, Nanny.